Around and Around

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It was a busy day yesterday. I met Erik for breakfast, which was delightful. My kids are so busy these days, and I don't see them nearly often enough. That's not a complaint, just an acknowledgement. I well remember what it was like to be their age and working full time. Erik has rotating days off, and so it was nice to see him looking so relaxed on the third of three days off.

After that, I headed to the post office to mail off a couple of little things, and then home. I straightened the place up a little because I was expecting a visit from the "sewing lady" to give me an in-home lesson on Eliza. She showed up an hour early. I'm glad I was home! I wonder if the time change caused that or if she was just anxious to see me. In any case, the lesson was helpful. She helped me with my bobbin tension, which was a little tight, and she gave me some tips on using the stitch regulator. I've been kind of ho-hum on the stitch regulator, but after having her show me a couple of things and working with the settings, I decided I kind of liked it.

The first large quilt I'm going to quilt on it is the Gardener's Journal quilt.

I've had a lot of time to think about this quilt, and it is going to be fun to quilt it. I'm going to use some traditional quilting motifs, but I'm also going to quilt a lot of flowers and bugs and butterflies and such. It's going to mean a lot of little circles and pebbles, and so I was practicing with the "sewing lady" to get some nice round little circles with even stitching. She convinced me that the best way was to set the "cruise" option, which means I'm turning the needle on and off with the red button.

If I do that, it avoids "pulling" at the first stitch as the stitch regulator engages and the needle begins to move. It's hard to explain, and easier to demonstrate. Hopefully, what I'm saying will make sense....not that anything I ever say makes sense. Speaking nonsense all the time means you can say pretty much anything without ever offending anybody.

So that about covers the "sewing lady". Does that mean I'm the sewing lady now? Perhaps.

After she left, I did another round on my Christmas table topper. I lost count how many times I got those half square triangles going in the wrong direction. Even when I was very careful, I still sewed them together wrong. Perhaps the session with the "sewing lady" had me befuddled, but I decided one round was enough of that for one day.

The border fabric for the "Never Underestimate" stitchery came yesterday, and so I auditioned a few colors for the stop border. I'm kind of leaning toward the blue.

But I could use red.

Or green. I love the green, but I don't have enough for the binding, and I kind of wanted to do both in the same color. I could decide to use one of my multi-striped or polka dotted fabrics for the binding too.

I'm still mulling it over. What do you think?

So that brings me to the parties. It's been a while since I've linked up to BOM's Away, but after fighting with the Wind in the Whiskers pattern last week, I think I deserve a link-up, don't you? Here's my Tiny Tim block:

To link up to:

Also, I'm linking up today to:

Today's topics are Irish Chain quilts and Fall quilts. I have just one Irish Chain quilt. It was this little doll quilt I made for the granddaughter of a friend. 

My friend Lisa has five granddaughters. A couple of years ago, I made a doll quilt for each of them. Each one was different and designed with the particular little girl in mind. You can see all five of the quilts right here. One of Lisa's granddaughters is named Irish, and so it seemed obvious to me that she needed an Irish Chain quilt. I was also able to find some shamrock fabric. When the quilt top was finished, I decided it needed something extra in the large white areas, and so I appliqued a shamrock into each of those. 

As for Fall quilts, I have quite a few of those. Today I'm linking to this little quilt I made for the monthly doll quilt swap.

The theme for the month when I made this particular quilt was "Harvest Time"

It was a free pattern I found online. I used raffia at the feet, hands, and neck to give my scarecrow some straw. You can read my original post right here.

So that's it from me today. I'm heading out to the pool a little later, and then to the grocery store. Tomorrow I have a whole day at home. Yay!